Field
Example embodiments relate generally to a dimming technique for flat panel display devices. More particularly, embodiments of the inventive concept relate to a method of controlling a dimming operation, a dimming operation control device, and a flat panel display device having the dimming operation control device.
Description of the Related Technology
Generally, electronic devices include output devices such as sound devices, display devices, etc. Recently, flat panel display devices (e.g., a liquid crystal display device, an organic light emitting display device, etc.) have been in wide use for various electronic devices. In the case of the liquid crystal display devices, luminance of a pixel can be determined by multiplying luminance of a backlight unit by light-transmittance of a liquid crystal layer, where the light-transmittance is adjusted based on data applied to each pixel. In the case of the organic light emitting display devices, luminance of pixel can be determined by adjusting a voltage and/or a current applied to each pixel.
Flat panel display devices can employ a dimming technique to improve contrast ratio and/or to reduce power consumption. Specifically, a dimming operation can be performed on a liquid crystal display device by determining a dimming value based on the brightness of an input image frame, adjusting the luminance of the backlight unit based on the determined dimming value, and compensating an input image data based on the adjusted luminance of the backlight unit. In addition, a dimming operation can be performed on an organic light emitting display device by determining the dimming value based on the brightness of the input image frame and adjusting the voltage and/or the current applied to each pixel based on the determined dimming value.
However, conventional dimming techniques sequentially (e.g., linearly or non-linearly) increases or decreases the dimming value based on the brightness of the input image frame. In these techniques, the dimming value is increased or decreased even when the brightness of the input image frame is rapidly changed (e.g., when the input image frame is changed from a black color image frame to a white color image frame, or from the white color image frame to the black color image frame). As a result, the conventional dimming techniques cannot prevent a phenomenon in which an image output from the flat panel display device sequentially becomes brighter or darker. Since the phenomenon results in brightness changes or color changes of the image output from the flat panel display device, an image quality of the flat panel display device may be degraded.